


Begin Again

by holysmoaksoliver



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3776266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holysmoaksoliver/pseuds/holysmoaksoliver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 3x19- Felicity and Oliver have a frank discussion. Takes place directly after the Team Arrow goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aubvi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aubvi/gifts).



Like the majority of things when it came to Oliver, Felicity didn’t think about their closeness after saying goodbye to Roy. It had been a punch to the gut watching Roy drive off and leave their team, even if she’d known for days that it was coming. Latching onto Oliver in that moment had been instinct, linking her arm through his and resting her chin on his shoulder. They had both needed comfort, watching Roy leave forever and Felicity found that she wanted to be the only person to give Oliver that comfort.

She hadn’t wanted to let Oliver go-- back to wallow who knows where, over the fact that Roy had done something like that to save him. Felicity knew Oliver well enough to know that he would be beating himself up over it for days. But Ray was there waiting for her, so she watched from his passenger seat as Oliver got into the van with Diggle and drove off.

Part of her wanted to be there with them, the original team back together again, sharing stories around a table with a bottle of liquor. It was the type of send off Roy deserved, even if he wasn’t able to be there for it.

“You holding up okay?” Ray asked, reaching across and taking her hand in his as they drove back into Starling.

Felicity shook her head a little, feeling a few tears trickle down her cheeks. Roy was the little brother she’d never had, or the son she dreamed of one day having. Every instinct in her yelled to low-jack his car, to tell him to come back and they’d find a way to fix it. Roy shouldn’t have to leave like this, even if it had been his choice to do it.

“I know this is probably sucky timing,” Ray said, slowing the car to a stop at a red light. “But the other day you said something about boundaries. Because we work together…”

Felicity was confused. She barely remembered the conversation, especially with her head so full of sadness and worry over the men she loved. Roy was out on his own, Barry was going through a ton of stuff with Wells in Central City, and Oliver--

“Boundaries?” she repeated.

Ray cleared his throat. “We were working and you said you were going to…” he paused. “You said you could kiss me and then said something about boundaries.”

“Yeah,” she answered, still not seeing where he was going with this line of thinking. “It seems appropriate if we’re going to be working together that we keep it professional at the office.”

“Okay,” he said dismissively. Awkward silence hung in the air between them for several moments as they drove back into the city. Ray’s hand wrapped around hers was no longer comforting either of them.

“A couple of months ago when you came to my office and offered to help me,” Ray started again. “You told me about someone… a more than friend.” He shifted uncomfortably, removing his hand from Felicity’s, adjusting a knob on the dashboard and then moving it to the steering wheel. “It was Oliver, wasn’t it?”

Felicity scoffed before she could stop herself. “This really isn’t the time to talk about this, Ray,” she said, choking back more tears. Her emotions were already running high, she did not need to be defending her relationship with Oliver to her boyfriend. “Was that what your boundary comment was about? Because I was comforting Oliver when one of his closest friends left, probably forever?”

Ray cleared his throat. “Maybe you’re right,” he stammered. “This isn’t the best time to talk about it.”

She bit into her bottom lip, if only to keep it from trembling. But it wasn’t about the sadness anymore. A growing fire of anger in her belly over Ray’s remark was very close to getting the better of her. Not only that he would bring up a completely inappropriate topic in the car, but that he would do it at a time when one of her closest friends had just left, forced out by something that Ray himself put into motion.

She’d stuck by him thus far over the whole ordeal, but this was too far.

“Maybe you’d rather talk about how you went to Laurel Lance with information about Oliver being the Arrow, or how you went on television in front of the city and told them that you’d put all your resources into finding him?” Felicity felt the anger surge within her. “Or maybe you would like to talk about how you tried to hurt both Oliver AND Roy by setting up a fake police call for me to find and send them out after. Did you know there were three legitimate 911 calls that night that they couldn’t get to because of your stunt? And at every turn I have stood beside you because I thought you really wanted to do something good in this city. Because I know that even when we are all at our best, we can’t save everyone. But this-- this petty jealousy that you have over Oliver doing actual good in this city while you fly around in a silly suit-- this is where I draw the line.”

Ray had pulled off the road and was staring at her, mouth hung open, by the time she finished her rant. Her phone rang in her purse, but Felicity ignored it, still keyed up.

“This has nothing to do with--” Ray began, but she cut him off.

“I’m not finished,” Felicity said, her voice still raised. Her hands were trembling in her lap, but she found the clarity to unbuckle her seatbelt as she turned to look at him. “I don’t know what… this is... “ she said, gesturing between the two of them. She scoffed again, shaking her head.

Felicity pushed the car door open and got out, bending down to look at him. “But I don’t care whether it was the nanobots in your brain or an aneurysm, you never. Never. Never. Tell a girl that you love her and then take it back.”

And with that she slammed the door and stalked off in the opposite direction from wherever they were headed. She didn’t even care where she was going, she just needed to put as much distance between her and Ray as humanly possible.

She hadn’t noticed that the van had come to a stop behind them, but now that she thought about it, the phone call was probably Oliver checking in when they’d pulled over. He hopped out of the passenger seat, crossing the distance between them quickly with a worried expression etched on his face.

“Felicity?” he said, but she turned, walking away from him. Her heels clicked across the concrete, echoing between the buildings on the narrow road as she put space between them.

Oliver didn’t let her escape; she could hear him jogging after her in the darkness. “Felicity,” he said again, his hand finding hers as he pulled her to a stop.

“The whole dramatic exit thing doesn’t work if you don’t let the person actually do the exiting thing,” she huffed, only turning back halfway. She didn’t know why it mattered, but she didn’t want him to see her all blotchy and red faced. “Let me go, Oliver.”

“No,” he said, gentle but resolute. “Not until you tell me what’s going on. Did Palmer do something to you? Because I will-”

Felicity pulled her hand out of his, turning her back to him. “I really need to be by myself. I can’t do this with you right now.” She heard tires squealing behind her and she winced slightly, finding herself relieved that if she couldn’t put more distance between herself and Ray, that he’d do it for her.

She wanted to move, to feel the cool wind in her face as she power-walked away, but something kept her feet cemented in place. She tried not to let the nagging voice in the back of her mind tell her that the ‘something’ keeping her there was Oliver. She sighed when she realized the voice sounded an awful lot like her mother’s.

“Felicity, I just need to know if you’re okay,” Oliver’s voice was stiffer now.

“Nothing about this is okay,” she said, turning back to him. “Not Ra’s or Ray or Roy. What’s with all the heartache lately starting with R’s?” she scoffed, feeling the words bubble up before she could stop them. “Because one problem is solved and five more pop up because of it. Nothing is easy anymore. Not since--”

Oliver visibly tensed and Felicity felt herself bristle too. She didn’t want to be talking about this with him. She didn’t want to be talking about it at all. But words always had a tendency to tumble out when she didn’t want them to.

“What happened with Ray?” Oliver questioned, taking a cautious step toward her.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said harshly. “Why can’t I just wallow in losing Roy for just a little while without you two taking verbal swings at each other? This has been the night from hell. Is wallowing really too much to ask for?”

“I’ve never known you to be much of one for wallowing,” he said, his voice low and warm.

“You don’t know everything about me,” Felicity scoffed. It was petty, she knew, but she wasn’t ready to let her anger go.

“What did Ray say to you tonight?” Oliver asked again, his fists clenching at his side. She didn’t know why he was harping on it, why it mattered so much to him. She knew her heartbreak over Roy leaving was clouding her judgement, which was why she’d requested that Oliver leave her alone. But clearly he wasn’t going to let this go.

“He said I lacked boundaries with you,” she seethed. “In so many words. He implied that I had less boundaries with you than I did with him. Which is utterly ridiculous considering the context of things which I will not be discussing with you.”

“And that made you jump out of his car?” Oliver asked, prying deeper.

“No,” she huffed. “But the fact that I broke up with him did. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a pint of mint chip waiting for me at home and a hell of a lot of reasons to devour it tonight.” She spun on her heel, taking off again, needing to clear her head, needing to get away from Oliver when her mother’s voice kept screaming in Felicity’s head that she was in love with him. She needed to keep the anger up, because without the anger all she had was heartbreak, and she wasn’t ready to break down in the middle of the road.

On second thought, she turned around, gearing up for another round with Oliver. “Actually, I need to know something,” she said, not giving her mind time enough to catch up with her mouth. “All those times you told me you loved me, and I never said it back. You kept telling me anyway. I want to know why.”

“Felicity,” he said, moving close to her, invading her space and clouding her head like he had a tendency to do. “You know why.”

She felt tears streaming down her face now. “No, I don’t,” she said, shaking her head. Her voice cracked but she pressed on. “I don’t know why you kept telling me, even if you knew I wouldn’t say it back.”

Oliver let out a breath, weighing his options. They both knew how worked up she was over Roy and Ray. “It wasn’t ever about you saying it back,” Oliver said, his voice low and even, full of emotion. He swallowed hard and Felicity’s eyes followed his Adam’s apple as it bobbed in his throat. Her eyes found his again in the darkness. “It was always about making sure you knew,” he said, holding her gaze. “Where is this all coming from?”

It wasn’t a question she’d expected him to ask, but she felt she owed him the truth just the same. Even if it hurt him to hear, because she needed him to know everything about what she’d been through these last several months without him. It was an urgent aching inside her that had been growing since the night of their first kiss. Only now she couldn’t deny it anymore. She needed Oliver to know everything about her, every inch of her, inside and out.

“Ray told me that he loved me,” she said, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and gnawing on it.

“Oh,” Oliver said, his voice low. His head dipped to the side, averting his gaze.

“He told me he loved me and I told him that I was going to get him jell-o.” Felicity let out a sigh and Oliver’s eyes quickly found hers again. He was searching her face for something, his blue eyes darting back and forth between hers. “I couldn’t say it back to him. But it wasn’t for the same reason that I couldn’t say it to you.” It was all or nothing now. No sense in bearing only half her soul. “Ray consults me on things, he’s always been straightforward about what he wanted and he doesn’t make decisions for me, even if he thinks it’s protecting me.” She blew out a breath, watching Oliver’s eyes mix with more emotions than she could identify. “But I couldn’t say it back to him because it wouldn’t be true. It isn’t true. I don’t love him.”

“Felicity you don’t owe me any of--”

“I do,” she said quickly. “I owe you all of it and more. Because love isn’t consulting someone or being straightforward. Love is making hard decisions, it’s letting people go because you don’t think you’re good for them. Love is putting someone else’s needs, not their wants, above your own.” She swallowed hard. “It took me so long to see it,” her voice was a whisper now, barely audible. “I never realized you loved me that much. That you’d let me search for happiness with someone else rather than put me in danger.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Oliver asked, his voice and eyes and expression settling on a thinly veiled pained expression.

“Because you need to hear it,” she mimicked, stepping closer to him to close the final distance between them. She placed a hand on his chest, where his heart thudded quickly against her fingertips. “I love you Oliver. And I’m not telling you to hear it back. I’m telling you to make sure that you know.”

Oliver’s hands went to her cheeks, cupping her face like he’d done the first time they kissed. He leaned down, resting his forehead against hers as their breath mingled in the small space between their lips. “And I love you,” he whispered, capturing her lips in a slow and sweet kiss.

It didn’t erase the other events of the night. It didn’t diminish them or make them hurt less, but the urgent ache that had been her constant companion since the night she first walked away from Oliver stopped throbbing. She didn’t need him to know everything about her anymore-- because for the first time, Felicity finally realized that he already did.


End file.
